Could the Migration of Jupiter have Accelerated the Atmospheric Evolution of Venus?

TL;DR

This study investigates how Jupiter's migration could have influenced Venus's orbital eccentricity and water loss, potentially accelerating its atmospheric evolution towards a runaway greenhouse state.

Contribution

It provides dynamical simulations linking Jupiter's migration to increased Venusian eccentricity and water loss, highlighting a possible mechanism for Venus's divergent climate history.

Findings

Venus's eccentricity could have reached up to 0.31 due to Jupiter's migration.

High eccentricity likely increased water loss rate by at least 5%.

Orbital forcing may have accelerated Venus's atmospheric collapse.

Abstract

In the study of planetary habitability and terrestrial atmospheric evolution, the divergence of surface conditions for Venus and Earth remains an area of active research. Among the intrinsic and external influences on the Venusian climate history are orbital changes due to giant planet migration that have both variable incident flux and tidal heating consequences. Here, we present the results of a study that explores the effect of Jupiter's location on the orbital parameters of Venus and subsequent potential water loss scenarios. Our dynamical simulations show that various scenarios of Jovian migration could have resulted in orbital eccentricities for Venus as high as 0.31. We quantify the implications of the increased eccentricity, including tidal energy, surface energy flux, and the variable insolation flux expected from the faint young Sun. The tidal circularization timescale calculations demonstrate that a relatively high tidal dissipation factor is required to reduce the eccentricity of Venus to the present value, which implies a high initial water inventory. We further estimate the consequences of high orbital eccentricity on water loss, and estimate that the water loss rate may have increased by at least $\sim$5\% compared with the circular orbit case as a result of orbital forcing. We argue that these eccentricity variations for the young Venus may have accelerated the atmospheric evolution of Venus towards the inevitable collapse of the atmosphere into a runaway greenhouse state. The presence of giant planets in exoplanetary systems may likewise increase the expected rate of Venus analogs in those systems.